


First Snowfalls

by Xanisis



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, I Ship It, i ain't even ashamed, kristoff gets caught in the curse, this is actually just an excuse to put elsa in jeans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-29
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2018-02-23 01:59:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2529812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xanisis/pseuds/Xanisis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He should be excited for his wedding. He should look at Anna’s eyes and see his future in them. He should. He should. He should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Snowfalls

He should be excited for his wedding. He should look at Anna’s eyes and see his future in them. He should. He should. He should.

 

.

 

Elsa draws into herself after Anna returns from the Enchanted Forest. She shuts everyone out, even Anna, and retreats behind her walls. Kristoff misses her. He knows he shouldn’t, but he does. He wants to hear her laugh again, wants to see her. He just _wants_. He knows he shouldn’t, but he does.

 

.

 

“Elsa?” he asks, pushing open the door to her chambers.

 

“You can’t be here,” she says, not turning from her spot by the window, shoulders rigid and humped, ice sprouting from her fingers, coating the edge of the window sill.

 

“I wanted to see you.”

 

“Why?” she asks and it sounds fragile and delicate, like a snowflake or the curve of her smile.

 

“I thought we were...” he trails off, _friends_ doesn’t seem to be quite the right word.

 

She sighs and when she turns to him, he feels an ache in his chest. There are deep hollows around her eyes, pupils blown and eyes bloodshot. She looks sunken and sad, all the bones in her body sticking out at too sharp angles.

 

“I miss you,” he says.

 

She opens her mouth to talk and he can almost see the words in the air between them.

 

“Leave me alone, Kristoff,” she says instead.

 

.

 

“I’m worried about Elsa,” Anna tells him.

 

“Yeah, me too,” he says, and he sees the surprise in Anna’s eyes, but she doesn’t read anything into it because she’s Anna and she trusts him.

 

Maybe she shouldn’t.

 

“I think I should go back to the Enchanted Forest,” she says.

 

“Is that good idea?” he asks, remembering her story of deals and knives and treachery.

 

“Magic is common there, Kristoff,” she says, “Someone other than Rumpelstiltskin has to know something about how to help Elsa.”

 

He looks at her long and hard and she blushes, tucking her hair behind her ear.

 

“Well, okay,” she says, “Maybe I’m just desperate.”

 

“Maybe,” he acquiesces, “But there’s no way I’m letting you go back there by yourself.”

 

When she hugs him hard, her smile pressing into the crook of his neck, he tries to pretend there isn’t an ulterior motive to him wanting to go. He doesn’t know what would happen if he stayed.

 

.

 

The curse strikes in a flurry of purple smoke, rolling over everything, a cloud of fear and the unknown. And then nothing.

.

 

His name is Chris and he works in the catering business. He dates girls with white blonde hair and doesn’t think anything of it.

 

.

 

He goes outside every year on the night of the first snow like clockwork and stares up at the sky. He breathes in the air, feels it all the way to his lungs, crisp and clear, like he’s allowing a tiny part of winter into his body. He’s always liked the snow, he doesn’t know why.

 

.

 

When the curse breaks, his first thought is of Elsa. He remembers the color of her laugh and the shade of her smile and the power in her outstretched hand and the way she’d looked at him, tears in her eyes, and saved him.

 

.

 

He finds her first. Something about the ice wall had been a tip off.

 

He walks in the door to the new mayor’s office and she’s standing there, looking beautiful and afraid and alone.

 

“Elsa,” he breathes and feels the twenty eight years disappear in an instant.

 

“Kristoff,” she says and there’s heartbreak in her eyes and maybe he should stay back, should still play the role of her sister’s fiance, but he’s missed her.

 

She gasps when he wraps his arm around her, holding her so tight that her feet leave the ground. He expects her to be cold, but she feels warm and alive and when she wraps hesitant arms around his neck, she feels like home.

 

.

 

He takes her back to his apartment. It’s weird to see her--blue gown sparkling and snowflakes decorating her hair--standing amidst his hodgepodge of furniture. The mismatched chairs and lumpy sofa and worn endtables seem shabbier compared to her brilliance.

 

“Take these,” he says, shoving a pair of old sweatpants and a t-shirt in her hands and gesturing towards the bathroom, “we can get you new clothes tomorrow, alright?”

 

She raises a delicate eyebrow, but doesn’t protest. She emerges a couple of minutes, hair undone and hanging around her shoulders. His clothes are huge on her, the sleeve of the shirt hangs off, exposing her collarbone and shoulder, and the sweatpants hang low on her hips. It’s not an unappealing look.

 

“Here,” he says, handing her a tea mug, which she takes, wrapping delicate hands around the stem.

 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly.

 

Her smile is just like he remembered, too small, but it’s a start.

 

.

 

They find Anna and while it should feel like the beginning of a new chapter, it feels like the end.

 

.

 

The apartment is really too small to house three people and everyone is constantly on edge, stumbling into each other in the tiny kitchen and tripping over stuff littered in the little hallway and waiting for too long outside the door to the one bathroom and then there’s the problem of where everyone should sleep.

 

“I’ll just sleep on the couch,” Elsa says, “At least until I find a new place.”

 

Kristoff opens up his mouth to protest, but closes it, because really what is he going to say? It’s not like they can all share. Anna catches the awkwardness, looks between the two of them with confused eyes. And they haven’t done anything wrong, but Kristoff still feels guilty.

 

.

 

“Did something happen between you and Elsa?” she asks him later.

 

“What? No,” he says, but his response is too quick and vehement and the look in her eyes wilts him.

 

“Nothing happened,” he says.

 

“I love you,” he says.

 

She’s quiet for a long time and he knew, he knew this whole time, how horrible the whole thing was, how horrible and messy and complicated, but he couldn’t control his heart. He’s always been known for bumbling into things that he wasn’t equipped for.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, “I didn’t mean for it to happen, not that anything actually did happened. Just. I’m sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.”

 

“I know,” she says, her voice quiet and not Anna’s.

 

When she smiles, its tinged with sadness and her eyes are wet.

 

“Just be happy, okay? You both deserve to be happy.”

 

“Anna,” he says, reaching out for her, but she’s already gone.

 

.

 

“You don’t have to move out,” he tells Elsa the next day, when she is packing her few belongings. He catches sight of her blue dress littered among her sweaters and jeans and feels a rush of nostalgia. It feels like a long time since they lived in Arrendale.

 

She looks up at him and his guilt is mirrored in her eyes.

 

“I do,” she says softly.

 

“We didn’t do anything wrong, Elsa,” he says. It feels weird to acknowledge it, as if he has broken some sort of unspoken rule.

 

“Then why do I feel this way?” she asks

 

He doesn’t have an answer for that.

 

“She’s my sister, Kristoff,” she says, like it hurts her to say it.

 

It hurts him to hear it.

 

“I know,” he says and he does, he really does, “I know.”

 

.

 

The house feels empty when they’re both gone. He takes long showers and sleeps in the middle of the floor and doesn’t go shopping for weeks at a time. He misses Sven. He misses Anna. He misses Elsa. So much that it hurts.

 

.

 

The first snowfall comes and he walks outside and she’s standing there on the sidewalk outside his apartment.

 

“Your doing?” he asks her, pointing at the sky.

 

“Not this time,” she says.

 

She’s not wearing a jacket--just a sweater that looks suspiciously like one of his and a pair of worn jeans--and her hair is in a loose braid and he thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

 

“Do you want to come in?” he asks.

 

“That sounds nice,” she says, offering him a smile like a peace offering.

 

.

 

A new chapter begins.

  
  
  



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